1. Know the resistances and defenses of the opponents units
Really, it isn't much work to highlight a unit and click 'd', or whatever brings up the unit description. This will tell you its weakness and strengths, which if you know your units, will provide you a solution. But the opponent can do this to you, so be prepared to follow the next step.

1b.Don't do stupid things with units
there are several threads on what exactly "stupid things" are--read those, and make them milder and they are still stupid. Inexcusable ones that are probably far to common are, attacking things resistant to your weapon, attacking with something weak to their weapon, attacking from bad terrain (see Unit Description to see what is bad), sending one unit into hordes of enemies (unless as a distraction), and many other things.

2.Pick your fights well
When engaging an enemy, make sure of the following things: either you can kill it or it won't be able to kill you (on his turn too), and that his other units can't kill you on his turn either. This can be accomplished by means of

3a.Using ZoC and healing wiselyZoC means that enemies can't get past a unit it touches over the course of its movement. This means that if you put two units adjacent, one , or two hexes apart, the enemy can not move past them without killing one. I call this making a wall. Use this to protect damages units, close off battles you know you can win, and stop the enemy from reinforcing a a group of units. Healing recovers your units health. That generally means it won't die. There are 3 ways to heal. The first is villages. Yes, those little houses are wonderful. Not only do they get you gold, but each turn they heal a WOUNDED UNIT ON THEM 8 HP. That means that if he doesn't die in a turn, he gets an ADDITIONAL 8 HP the next time, plus an additional two from resting. Remember, retreating with a wounded unit is better than desperately trying to kill the unit it was fighting--it saves you 8-23 gold and it saves regetting xp with a new unit.
Also remember, healers do not heal themselves, and are rather weak, in general. That mean you must keep your healers away from the front lines, unless the situations requires it (see last rule)
*thanks to Inigo Montoyo*
Conversely however, enemies can use this against you, meaning you want to try to kill their wounded units or ZoC them away from villages.
3b.not being able to be attacked
If you are out of the movement range of the enemy, you can't be attacked by them, can you?

Pretty much, it's better to keep your unit alive than use it to kill enemies: it's much easier to kill the enemy off with some other, more appropriate unit *thanks again to Inigo Montoyo*

4.Pay attention to likelihood of hitting
If a unit has only 1 hp left, but only 30 percent chance to be hit, attack it with a unit with more attacks, greater likelihood to hit. That also means to move your units on to better terrain for defense if they can not be protected. *note, they will still probably die, though if you tons of enemies surround you.

5. When to kill things
2 ways to go about this--kill wounded units, or weaken strong ones. If the enemy is really wounded, likelihood is that it will not attack on his turn, because he will try to heal it (see above) However, if it is not that wounded, try to kill it before slightly wounding another unit--that leaves two able units instead of 1 full health one, which sucks more. This concept is from Musashi--to attack where the enemy is strongest, to break resistance.
*"Just note that ganging up on a unit is more successful the more units you use. Also note your units survive better when they can only be attacked from 1+2 directions rather than 3+4 directions." *thanks to spanner for this wonderful piece of common sense, phrased almost as I would have*
5b.If unit is about to level
What to do depends on your ability to kill it. If it is heavily damaged, try to kill it (Thank you for this piece of obvious advice Vilhem) If it is relatively undamaged, however, trying to kill it before it levels is pointless. Instead use units that do less damage to level it up, and than attack it with your stronger units to damage it. Or you can leave it alone and let it attack your units--which should not be in places where they are easy to hit and thus will take less damage (hopefully) than it does.

6.Holding positions
In order to keep the enemy at bay, there are two ways to keep them from moving where you do not want them. One is to put units there. An example of this would be filling forest hexes with elves, or conversely filling them so that elves can not reach. Use your brain to think of other such scenarios (villages, other terrains, etc).
However, there is another, equally effective way, and one that cold get you more benefit, in some situations. This is to keep that area free from units, and instead have units threatening the area. For example, don't put a unit on a village, instead put your battle line in such a place that you heavily discourage the enemy from trying to take it.
*thank you to krotop for suggesting this*

6.Disregard these if they don't apply to the situation
There are exceptions to all rules. Following any set of rules to the letter without understanding why will get you nowhere whatsoever, especially if many people use the same set of rules. Think outside the box, but not too far that your brain comes up will a "stupid thing"

Philosophy behind this comes from me, influenced heavily by The Book of the Five Rings

Part 1 General Advice: Velensk
This is a tactical guide to help with more specific troop movements rather than faction vs faction match-ups.
This is about making decisions based on odds/can-do's/can't-do's. The whole game is about cause and effect, and probability. When you make a decision, you have to consider what the effects of that decision will, or could be. This extends not only into next turn but all the other turns ahead. However it is often best to work with just, what an action will do in your turn, what the enemy will be able to do on their turn, and based of the enemy's options what will you do in the following turn based on the enemy's options. Not that thinking further than that can't be advantageous.

Luck
It is not always easy to calculate do to the random factor in the game, and the dice will frequently go in a way unexpected. This makes sense when you look at the odds. The best plans have a backup for if a combat result is unfavorable
: for example : If you have two attacks and are attacking someone out in the open with a 40% defense. There is roughly a 40% chance that both hits will hit. So if your enemy hits you twice, he's not getting exceptionally lucky, he's just one of about four men out of ten. It may not have been what you expected, but it's not that uncommon so a good plan would take that possibility into account.
On the other hand if you attacked a ulf with a skeleton at night with a 99.98 chance to win and lost, yes he got incredibly lucky, but I bet that in the next thousand times a skeletons with those odds attacks an ulf that the skeleton would win all but maybe one or two times. There is no way you were supposed to prepare for it, but don't let odd things like this spoil your fun even if they lose you the match.

Think ahead when planning your moves, thinking to far ahead can be frustrated if combat goes against plan, but if you don't think at least a little ahead you will be more susceptible to falling into traps, and such.

:For example: If you were playing undead and it was night, and you had a skeleton archer a dark adept and a skeleton, and he had moved a spearman into the open plains within reach of your forces, it would seem like a very good idea to go and kill him, for you could surly do it this turn. However the information given does not take into account what will happen on your opponents turn. It could be obvious such as on his turn it will be dawn and he has an heavy infantry a spearman and a cavalry that could easily target your dark adept kill it, then pin down your skeletons so that they are easy to kill in the day light. Or it could be something hidden, such as he has a cavalry hidden in the fog and once your forces have run off to kill the spearman he can have his cavalry run behind your lines to grab your village and since you have no units to stop him can run around grabbing villages and drawing of your units until you can finally pin it down and kill it. By which time you could be having problems because of less income, or the units that are chasing the cavalry aren't around to fight or whatever.

Limit your enemies options to ones that are favorable to you, if you can
ZoC is a great way to do this to non skirmishers. If you get a unit on either side of it, it can only move one hex, unless one of your units is killed by units other than the flanked unit.
ZoC also limits which of your units can be attacked by creating walls that stop non skirmishers.
The number of available spaces next to an hex limits the number of units that can attack that hex.
Enemies choices can be restricted with specials like slow and posion.

Running away
Often it is much better to run than to fight even if it gives your enemy a temporary advantage.

:example: You are loyalists and preparing for the undead forces attacking on the first night. On one flank you have a spearman, bowman, and a heavy infantry, and you see that your enemy is coming at you with 2 dark adepts, and a skeleton, with a archer a turn behind. He is player 2 and it it is the first turn of night and you are currently both in swinging range of each other, with your units at your outer villages. Now if you look at this you could try to hold him of and try to hold him off and kill the adepts which would lower his offensive damage severely, however there are a few things that make this probably not a good idea. Firstly you are doing reduced damage, so it would probably take all 3 units to bring down one adept and if he was playing smart he probably limited it so that only two units can attack each adept at most making a kill unlikely, however lets say for a moment that you do manage to kill the adept somehow. This leaves it his turn with two turns of night. He would be able to attack your forces with a skeleton/adept and maybe an archer to attack your forces with, and at night the odds of killing a spearman with those units killing your spearman now that it's out in the open is not bad. Now that you've lost your spearman you can no longer have much any chance of taking out the other adept in one turn, and the battle goes downhill from there, and this is assuming that you do manage to kill the adept, and if you fail to kill the adept then your heavy infantry is probably dead, and that leaves you with a bowman/spearman to fight his forces.
Now lets say that instead you try to hold your position, that lets him attack your heavy infantry with two adepts (with decent odds of killing him in one go), and still leaves the skeleton free to do whatever.
In this circumstance it might be better to run and let him grab the village on his turn. Then on his next turn he'd have to consider if he wants to use his last turn of night to attack you, now that you've had time to reinforce (with whatever you recruit and/or your leader depending on the situation) When on your turn it will be dawn and you'd have a much better chance of being able to kill his units.
In this exchange you did lose some gold to him, but you prevented yourself from losing whatever units you have there, and potentially lured him into an advantageous situation.

Use your units effectively
This is hard to explain because if varies greatly from situation to situation, but if you commit to an engagement, you want to make sure that you use your units in the best way possible. This often involves attacking melee units with ranged and vice versa, using magic against high defense, what units would be best where, efficient use of terrain, and so forth. Consider what you can do to give him a hard time, or to give yourself an easy time. Experience often helps you notice things that you might not otherwise notice. Consider what abilities the units you've brought have and how you can use them to your benefit.

Don't get wrapped up in the abilities, but in the effect of the abilities.

This is something I've noticed some new players have a problem with, and that is that they are so obsessed with using an ability like backstab, that they make stupid moves for the point of using the ability. Just because you can put a footpad on one side of an mage and whack him, and then put a thief on the other side of the mage and backstab him, does not necessarily make it worth losing the thief and the footpad on the next turn when they get run over by spearmen and cavalry men. This does not mean that backstab isn't worth it, it does not even mean that backstab is not worth it if you have to sacrifice the thief to use it. On the contrary backstab is a great ability and it is often worth sacrificing a thief to take out a high priority enemy, but weigh the consequences of an action don't just jump on it because it's an opportunity to use the ability.

The theory of localized advantage.
In theory if all players start with equal gold, and the map is balanced, then everything is on equal terms, and a head on battle should go to whoever used their units more efficiently/got luckier, but what happens more often is that a player wins because he engaged with a local advantage, and used that to win an engagment and the advantage of that eventualy allowes him to win the game. Local advantages can be gotten a number of ways. Time of Day, terrain, and number of troops on a front are amoung the most common however.
Time of day is just a force of nature that shifts and sways, but is not to be underestimated.
Terrain is another force of nature, it tends to help the defender more than the attacker, but not always.
Number of troops can be because you placed more troops on front than your opponent or that you quickly moved troops between fronts before your enemy could react, or that for whatever reason you have more money to build more troops with.

Try to level intelligent units.
One lvl 2 can change the face of a battle completly, especialy since it also heals the lvling unit. Intelgent units are the easiest units to lvl, so try to give final blows to intelegent units. Like with abilities though don't give yourself a disadvantage speificaly to give expeiance to your intelgent units.

Situations are the basis of all choices.
If any advice is not good advice for your situation ignore it.

Conclusion
Keep in mind the consequences of whatever action you do, and what your enemy will be able to do if you do it. Try to play with the odds, but prepare for the worst. Try to plan you moves so that you can mount effective attacks/defenses regardless of what your enemy does. Try to limit your enemies options, and engage at an advantage. Keep in mind the option of running, but if you do engage use your units efficiently. Try to funnel experience to intelligent units, and ignore all previous advice if it does not apply to your situation for whatever reason.

Part 2: Platypus' Arena: Insane: Thrawn Rationale
As I've been playing/observing MP games, I noticed that lots of people love this stage. It is usually quick, involves using superpower units, and is seemingly mindless. So mindless that I notice people dying...All the time, even when they begin with 800 gold. Thus, Common Sense strikes again, but under the guidelines of applying it to this map.

1. What to get with your money:
Although there are many cool weapons in the store, you can not attack with them all. Don't buy a bunch of weapons. Get one or two, to round out your weaknesses, but that is enough. Instead, get hp. Hp is useful, the more you have, the easier it is to not die, especially when facing units that far outnumber you. Also, get strikes. unless the unit has a really weak multihit attack, improving it d+3--s+0 is worse that d+0--s+1.
---common example:
dark adept:
step 1: look for weaknesses...No melee (but gains impact melee next lvl
step 2: look at strengths...good ranged.
step 3: decide what to get:scenario1
----------hp
----------improve rangedthis is really common. A powerhouse of ranged damage. It woks, as long as you don't let it die. Keep it away from being attacked by more than 2 or so units. Remember, even AI units near someone else will attack the adept if it can reach. Don't think everyone going to their direction will help keep the adept alive.
step 3: scenario 2
--------hp
--------improved range
--------spear of justice/improvements to meleeno one does this, but a much better alternative. Although ranged is not so strong, it doesn't need to be...because you can now defend yourself from melee units, using first-strike and a damage type that you won't get from leveling.

2a. Where to go:First turn
Make sure that you are not moving into attacking range the first turn, against horsemen. They will eat you, lots of hp or no. I've played games where multiple units with 70-100+ hp were killed because they let the horsemen attack first, and score up to 50 damage off them. With the exception of units like ghosts, with great resistances and a drain attack, let them come to you.2b. Where to go: general
The sides of the Arena each have a different type of terrain. This lets units pick the side that is best for them. Remember, initial placement doesn't matter: Everyone has to use a move going to the center to upgrade, so it takes just as much time to go back to "your side" as it does to go to someone elses. Don't let beginning in front of the desert section make you upset if you are an elf. Just trade places with an elusivefoot who can use the hills just as well as forest.

Try to stick together when moving, especially later and later in the game. Move into an empty sector, if possible. Then put the units on the good defenses, and plan your attacks. Less enemies are able to attack each of your units this way, and benefits such as leadership,healing, backstab, and illuminate are then a benefit for everyone. This also lets you feed xp to certain units...healers, mages, and the other ones that usually die.

3. Everthing Else
Follow the common sense tips I have in my other section.

4. Misc. Tips
*getting units that lvl. to 4 are useful
*even though ghouls are only to lvl 2, they necroheal, and thus are useful in many ways. Think of some on your own.
*Give units extra moves, instead of improving things that don't need it. Extra moves can mean surviving, getting the first attack, and helping other people on your team. Ghosts with an extra move get to attack their group of enemies first every time, which is useful against mage enemies in groups.
*No unit sucks (except for goblins)...some are not as easy to use as others, and some begin awesome, but played right, every units can add something important to the battlefield. E.g: mermen, elves.
*If you have a unit with plauge, the WCs can be upgraded.
*make a balanced group. 6 ghosts may win, but they can also get screwed mightily by the MoLs and Great Mages.

This is team battle, not side by side fight, so take care of them as if they were your own units. Except for sentimental values, they're as important as yours.
- your ally needs villages as much as you for recruit, heal or defensive slot, share them. Better well choosing who takes what at the beginning of the game, though, because the team will lose a little money each time you exchange a village later.
- donâ€™t be reluctant at sacrificing a cheap, not so useful unit if it saves a more important one in your ally side (Ex : you may cover your ally mage with one troll of yours)
- donâ€™t take a slot that your ally could make a better use than you (Ex1 : you take a forest where your ally could put his elves ; Ex2 : you take an hex to shoot a unit where your ally could have done better damages than you)

2. Communicate with your partner

Not only does it keep the fun up, but also itâ€™s rather important to make your strategy together with your ally, but be warned that :
- people may not understand your plan, so make it as clear as you can but if it still doesnâ€™t work leave it off and stay in control of your side.
- people may think itâ€™s a bad plan, which may be true, so let him argue against it. Never compel someone to follow your idea, always ask him if your plan sounds ok. You can try to convince him but if it still doesnâ€™t work leave it off and stay in control of your side.
- some people donâ€™t like to receive advices, it makes them feel youâ€™re playing their units and ruin their fun, so take it with philosophy and stay in control of your side.
*thanks to bert1*

3) Make your strategy coordinate with your allyâ€™s.

No matter how good you are individually, some moves which maybe ok alone can shoot in the foot of your ally if he had other plans (Ex : your rush on a strategic position while your ally needed you to remove an ennemy from one of his villages). Or the opposite, you engaged troop in a battle, counting on your ally support, but he didnâ€™t follow because he didnâ€™t get your strategy (Ex : you put a grunt on a jammy position to imprison a drake, but your ally donâ€™t put a unit on the opposite hex, resulting in a meaningless sacrificed grunt instead of a trade).

4) Pay attention to the side order

This is mainly how the mechanics of the game differ from a standard duel : players are constrained to move their own troops side after side, while the battle is team against team, which makes tactics more restrictive.There are 2 configurations used for balance reasons (mainly to compensate first player advantage) :
- Players 1 & 3 against players 2 & 4, called â€œ1212â€ to make short
- Players 1 & 4 against players 2 & 3, called â€œ1221â€

Itâ€™s a necessity to know which opponent is playing right after you. Itâ€™s good to ask yourself :
- Can the next opponent cover his ally before yours finish off units you expected to kill ?
- Can he shoot your exposed troops before your ally can cover you ?
- Can the next opponent attack your ally units if you donâ€™t cover it ?
- Can he reach a strategic hex you wanted to leave to your ally ?
If youâ€™re playing in 1221 configuration as the first player of the team, youâ€™ll have to take care even more about which slots youâ€™re leaving to your ally : are they safe ? will he make a better use of them than you ? does he even have troops to put there ?

5) General tips :

a. Abilities:
- If your unit is close to a healer at the beginning of the healerâ€™s turn, it will receive health points. This amount is added to health regained during your turn if you were on a village, had regeneration or were staying. You can earn more than the standard 8-10 hp in a turn that way.
- You can use backstab with allied troops
- You donâ€™t share leadership or protection with your ally

b. Rolling troops:
- If you have different alignments with your ally, you can take advantage of any time of day with a good rolling cooperation.
- On the other hand, rolling may not always be possible without losing some field (see point 4) and you sometime wonâ€™t want to hand off a strategic position to the ennemy.

c. Mixing units: find a compromise
- With mixed troops, youâ€™ll have better adapted units to any situation, using them to their full potential.
Ex : youâ€™re human+elf vs drake+undead and recruited a mage as human facing drake, and elf archer facing undead, then youâ€™ll want to exchange units to have mage facing undead and archer facing drakes.
- On the other hand, tactics will be harder to handle, units blocking others, thus not being able to use them at all

d. Adaptation to maps & factions:
- Depending on the map size or configuration, you may not be able to mix troops at all or even want it for logistic reasons (such as grabbing villages fast or be the first on key points). Donâ€™t mix for the sake of mixing.
- Depending on the factions, youâ€™ll use the best compromise between rolling, mixing, or seperating sides. If you play loyalists+undeads on a small map, youâ€™re likely to roll to take advantage of time of day and almost no mix so that the attack is more efficient (because of better tactics), while with elves+dwarves youâ€™re likely to mix more so that every terrain is best used and you care less about time of day.

************************************************************

I hope people read these and start thinking, It will improve their game.

Thanks to Velensk, Krotop, and all the other people who have helped with this over the years!

It's all fun and games until someone loses a lawsuit. Oh, and by the way, sending me private messages won't work. :/ If you must contact me, there's an e-mail address listed on the website in my profile.

The one thing I disagree with is #2: you generally can't be *sure* that the enemy can't kill you. Many units in Wesnoth can do more than 50% of the hp of a same level unit in one attack if they get all their hits (which they might at any time, even against 70% defense; especially if they have few swings), and it's impossible to build a formation such that none of your units can be attacked by two enemies (unless you control practically the entire map already, or there are *really* severe terrain chokepoints).

You should try to minimize the chance that an enemy will be able to kill your units, by protecting wounded and low-hp units, being on good defensive terrain and running away when time of day increases the enemy's damage. (Running away only works if you can actually get out of the enemy's movement range plus one hex. Otherwise, don't abandon good terrain to run and be caught in bad terrain.) But you should neither rely on nor expect getting this chance to zero.

I'd also add, don't rely too heavily on using weak/wounded expendable units as bait. It works very well on the AI (which is heavily oriented towards maximizing your casualties, regardless of the effect on its own), but good MP opponents will probably know when not to take it.

Chris Byler wrote:The one thing I disagree with is #2: you generally can't be *sure* that the enemy can't kill you. Many units in Wesnoth can do more than 50% of the hp of a same level unit in one attack if they get all their hits (which they might at any time, even against 70% defense; especially if they have few swings), and it's impossible to build a formation such that none of your units can be attacked by two enemies (unless you control practically the entire map already, or there are *really* severe terrain chokepoints).

I put it to you that you are wrong. As explained in number 3, if the enemy can not reach a unit, it can not kill that unit. And it is very possible to build defensive positions to shield on ally so that the enemy can not reach. The enemy, unless he controls the entire map simply won't be in certain places, such as behind your lines. And if the enemy is behind your line, well thats either not playing smart or letting them send units behind your line to slaughter them.

You should try to minimize the chance that an enemy will be able to kill your units, by protecting wounded and low-hp units, being on good defensive terrain and running away when time of day increases the enemy's damage. (Running away only works if you can actually get out of the enemy's movement range plus one hex. Otherwise, don't abandon good terrain to run and be caught in bad terrain.) But you should neither rely on nor expect getting this chance to zero.

this is exactly what I say in point 4 and 3.b

I'd also add, don't rely too heavily on using weak/wounded expendable units as bait. It works very well on the AI (which is heavily oriented towards maximizing your casualties, regardless of the effect on its own), but good MP opponents will probably know when not to take it.

I never suggest using weak units as bait--I say

sending one unit into hordes of enemies (unless as a distraction), and many other things.

This is not bait, it is offering up a unit to buy time--though it is also quite possible to outsmart enemies into taking bait, especially with shroud on--that is too specific, so I didn't mention it.

...please remember that "IT'S" ALWAYS MEANS "IT IS" and "ITS" IS WHAT YOU USE TO INDICATE POSSESSION BY "IT".--scott

Thrawn wrote:And it is very possible to build defensive positions to shield on ally so that the enemy can not reach.

It is, however, worth noting that some units can have special capabilities that can make this very difficult to pull off. Certain of the main campaigns that ship with the game contain scenarios wherein more than half of the enemy units have the ability to completely ignore zones of control. It is still possible to protect an injured or weak unit (by completely surrounding it with friendlies), but this is difficult and can usually only be done for a limited number of units at any given time. In these cases, it is necessary to use other tactics, such as attacking with units that have better resistences and/or more hitpoints so that they can survive long enough to kill all the enemies, units with enough movement to retreat clear out of the battle zone, larger numbers of healers than usual, hedgehog formations, et cetera.

And how do you take up with resources ?
You dont have unlimitied resources, so you cant always shield wounded units.
So its different if you have to play on the limit.

As it was also in some other threads, having the upper hand on money can be the most important point. And for this it is mobility.

I in general enjoy to have at least a few very agile/quick units, and I dont mind too much if they die (since they cant really fight anyway ... only get new villages, hit almost dead enemy units, or hindering a unit to escape...)

Good tips! I would add to the list to pay attention to experience, for your guys and for the enemies. If your guy is badly wounded but close to getting a level, you may be able to send him out to blast some random walking corpse or something and get him healed faster than sending him off to a village. Likewise, if an enemy unit is close to levelling, attack him with something big to make sure it dies before it can level/heal. It really sucks to get a few hits on an orcish assassin and suddenly it becomes a fully healed slayer because you weren't paying attention.

Vilan wrote:Likewise, if an enemy unit is close to levelling, attack him with something big to make sure it dies before it can level/heal.

I'd disagree. Taking "something big" to be a leveled unit, it would award multiple experience points to the target should it survive. Typically, two level 1 units deal more damage than a level 2 form of those units.

I meant "big" as in something that's able to kill it before it levels. If it's only 1 xp away from a level, you may want to use your biggest guy for the best chance to kill it. If it's several xp away, using several low-levels may be enough. Just don't use it as target practice for your elvish shamans is what I'm really saying.

The problem with lines and Zoc is when if they plan to attack, they want to triple team the unit(s) which will give them best defensive position.
I'm just saying making a line can be really hard and is definitely one of the things I spend a lot of my time thinking about...

When you make wall out of few units, only one of them will be attacked, but with high number of enemies, most times 3-4, but it's not enough to kill it most times, as enemy attacks one unit with all his force, even if 1-2 of those units are not good against it. That's because it's better to deal 26 damage to one guy, than 18 to two. Well, it might be not true, but that's how ppl play

So good startegy is to have f.e. 3-4 defensive units(rather with good def than HP), and 2-3 skirmisher and/or mtd. Your oppo does not see your 2nd line, so you can choose whom to attack, and you might be sure he will try to move forward - that's what ppl do when they see wall_2 (2 hexes between each unit) - its good strategy, but best without fog, cause you are sure there are no mtd. and skirmishers covered by the fog.

User:Kshinji
Probably there's no point for me posting here, but i'll raise my PC to 1337 before leaving again ;P -- just kidding.

Also, if you send a coupla scout-units you don't mind sacrificing village gathering off in some obscure place, the AI (and some humans too) will send lots of units after them, making it easier for your main force to attack.

Building on that, you can send scout units to the side, or back of enemy lines causing them to draw at least 3-4 units off to kill them, opening holes in their lines, and allowing you to attack one unit with multiple ones.

hockeyavalanche wrote:Building on that, you can send scout units to the side, or back of enemy lines causing them to draw at least 3-4 units off to kill them, opening holes in their lines, and allowing you to attack one unit with multiple ones.

not common-sensical--> it's an application of the basics, not the basics themselves. It is a good strat. though.

...please remember that "IT'S" ALWAYS MEANS "IT IS" and "ITS" IS WHAT YOU USE TO INDICATE POSSESSION BY "IT".--scott